I’m a Terrible Person…

I LIED!

On accident…

I thought I would have enough time to pound out a race recap today…

but I ended up being in a car for 4 hours today and didn’t get home till a little less than an hour ago…

I feel like such a terrible person…

please forgive me and still be my friends!! 

BTW, SECRET:  YES, I did buy a running skirt ;) lol  just thought you’d like to know that I went all girly on y’all… I’ll talk more about it in my recap…

WHICH will be posted TOMORROW!!! :)  I get off work at 5 so I will keep my word that you shall have a recap by the end of tomorrow :)

You still my friend?

Don’t believe anything I say now? … that’s too bad…

I’ll make it up to you tomorrow ;)

A Promise I WILL Keep

Hey everyone!!  Long time no see!

I just wanted to let you all know that I had a BLAST
last weekend running the Capital City Half Marathon!!

Here’s the PROMISE:

I PROMISE to do a recap this coming Monday!!
MONDAY people!! lol… I have been so busy this week
it’s crazy!! Extra hours at work (A LOT of them lol, taking care
of wedding stuff, and not to mention that I have to do about 150 pages
of workbook stuff for school due Monday lol… that’s what I’ll be doing now
that I don't have to work anymore this week! (fun weekend I know)

Here’s a preview of what’s to come, I hope you all have a
great weekend and GOOD LUCK to those of you who are racing!! 
I’ll be thinking of you!

I Can’t Afford the Actual Race Virtual Marathon Recap

Ok… a week late but still wanted to post the recap!!  If you hadn’t heard, Barefoot Neil Z held a virtual marathon named “I can’t afford the actual race” … being that I’m on a tight budget because of school and the wedding at the moment, I thought this was a perfect race for my 2011 racing season!!  So thanks Neil!! :)

Click on the badge to take you to the official site

If you signed up for the race before Neil realized he was too busy, he sent you a personalized race bib (included in the price of registering for the race, of course)… well I signed up at the right time because he was actually able to surprise me and make me the most incredible race bib ever!!  It is my absolute favorite race bib of all time!!! I may have to frame it! ;)

Yep… $6.25 … June 25th is when I’m getting married
Z … my nickname
zuh-NEHT-uh … how you correctly pronounce my name

LOVE IT!!! :D 

This marathon was held on May 1st, but technically you had from April 17 – May 1st to get in all the miles as long as you ran the last 1k ( .62 miles) on May 1st… here’s a look at how I got my 26.2 miles in! (you can click on a couple of the dates to get a recap of that run)

                                                April 17 – 3.07 miles in 27:58
                                                April 18 – 5.06 miles in 52:01
                                                April 25 – 8.08 miles in  1:29:39
                                                April 26 – 2.02 miles in 20:30
                                                April 28 – 4.17 miles in 36:00
                                                April 30 – 3.1 miles in 24:55
                                                May 1 – .7 miles in 8.18

  Total:   26.2 miles in 4:19:35

(if I did the math correctly) lol ;)

May 1st, I got the last .7 miles I needed in (more than 1k, so I didn’t disqualify) whew ;)  I didn’t get around to actually running until I got some shenanigans in… I was tired lol
(that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!)

Well that tired me out and I wanted to take a nap…
That’s what Sundays are for anyways right?!

ok ok, no nap… Time to get up and finish this thing!

I ended up slowing down big time halfway thru because I accidentally dropped the TV remote between the wall and the treadmill and tried to keep going so i didn’t have to stop completely while I fished it out lol… yep… who’s clumsy???  *ME* lol… strong finish Zaneta!! lol ;)  

So thanks Neil for putting on this event!! It was fun and really helped me stay motivated to get in some training for my half marathon!!  (recap to come this week)
AND… did I mention I love the bib?! ;)

Happy Mother’s Day!!

I have the most wonderful mom in the whole world… sorry, but I’m a tad biased ;)

She went to every single one of my sporting events growing up, packed my lunch when i was a lazy high school student, let me cry on her shoulder or vent about something that really wasn’t a big deal, asked me how my day went because she actually cared, helped me get through the toughest quarter of my college career so I could graduate, she taught me how to be a Godly woman, taught me how to serve others,  let me make some mistakes so
I could learn from them, and is there for me when I need her… not to mention she just did a 100 mile bike ride yesterday on some tough hills!! 
(among countless other things that qualify her to be the best)

She’s my best friend and I am so blessed to call her my mom!!

Happy mother’s day to all you mothers out there!!  You truly deserve
more than one day to be celebrated for all you do for your children!! 
I hope you feel beyond special today!!

Strides for Mental Health 5k Race Recap

Well now that I have midterms out of the way and I’ve semi-stopped freaking out (for the moment), I can finally get around to posting my race recaps!!  By the way, you all crack me up!! lol… love your comments!!  Especially Pam’s!!  CLICK HERE to see it!  A couple of you were curious as to why I might be running alone Saturday… I may or may not still post about it later… if I don’t, I’ll email you!  OK… onwards!!

First up is my first 5k/race of the season!! :D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Strides for Mental Health 4th Annual 5k Walk/Run
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Start Time:  8:00am

I ended up getting up later than I wanted to (surprise surprise lol) so I didn’t eat anything, didn’t drink a whole lot of water, and just grabbed the nearest running clothes, threw in my contacts, grabbed my garmin, and rushed out the door lol… yeah, I’m not a morning person remember? ;)

Insert Random AWESOME fact here: My bib was #25!!!  lol  (I’m getting married on the 25th of June)  I just thought that was fun :)

I knew that one of my friends from church was going to be running the race too and knew that he wouldn’t have anyone there either because his wife got called in to work, so when I got there around 7:50am, I started looking for him.  I found him and we lined up together towards the front of the pack… about 4 or 5 rows back from the fast people.  This wasn’t a very big race, so it wasn’t chip timed or anything.

The head honcho counted down and we were off… well my friend runs faster than me and I was running with him…  AKA:  starting out too fast!  I started worrying about it, but decided I could just slow down when I wanted to because I have not been running very much or training very hard so I knew I wasn’t going to beat any records or anything lol…

My friend and I (I’m in the BLUE)

I was feeling good so I stuck with him til right about the halfway point then told him to go on without me…  This race was all mental for me… thats what a lot of my runs have been lately… a mental war… anyways… I was going to slow down with half the race left, but I realized that my legs felt great, it was just my lungs that were sucking air and I blamed that on the cold I was trying to get over… so I just kept running trying to stay at the same pace I was running.

I’m not gonna lie… I really wanted to slow down a few times, but I started getting excited, because I wasn’t doing as bad as I thought I would with as little training as I’ve had so far this year!!  Well, I came up to the straight stretch with about 800 meters left to the finish and I looked at my Garmin and blinked a couple times and then said OUTLOUD  “Heck YES!!”  I didn’t have a whole lot in me, but I dug down deep and picked it up, not a lot, but as much as I could… and I kept thinking “this is why I practice negative splits and ending kicks during most of my runs!  I KNOW I can do this!!!”  and as I kept running that finish line kept getting closer and my time kept ticking away…

My friend had finished with enough time to walk back about 100 yards to the finish to cheer for me and it really helped me out… something about having your named yelled out by someone just breaks through those mental walls…  I gave it all I had at the end and crossed that finish line so happy with myself… so ecstatic…

I PR’d by 19 seconds!!!

AND….

I BEAT MY GOAL IN MY FIRST RACE OF THE SEASON!! I RAN A SUB 25 MINUTE 5K!!!

I was so happy!  AND surprised!!!

My official time was 24:55!!  I did it!! 

I probably would not have run that fast if I hadn’t started out with my friend… I would have just made excuse after excuse as to why I couldn’t run that fast the whole time lol.. so thanks David!! :)  Now, I have to reevaluate my goals for this year ;) lol…sub 24 it is ;)

 

Here are my garmin stats:

Stats

Official Time: 24:55
Average Pace: 8:02/mile
Overall Place: 32/183
AG (20-29) place:  7/22
     **If it would have been the regular 20-24 age group I would have placed 1st by about 1:30!!

Upcoming Races

May 7, 2011 – Capital City Half Marathon
October 16, 2011 – Columbus Marathon